Senior diplomats on October 13 agreed Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao would meet in the Vietnamese capital later this month, the Yomiuri Shimbun and Nikkei dailies reported.

Mr Akitaka Saiki, chief of Asia-Pacific issues at Japan's foreign ministry and Chinese diplomat Wu Dawei, special representative on the Korean peninsula, met in Beijing and agreed on the talks, the papers said.

The report came as the two sides look to get their relationship back on track after the worst diplomatic row in recent years.

China broke off all high-level contact with Tokyo last month after Japan detained a Chinese fishing boat captain whose vessel collided with Japanese coast guard patrol ships in waters claimed by both sides in the East China Sea.

The row between Asia's two biggest economies was their worst in years and undermined painstaking efforts of recent years to improve relations following decades of mistrust stemming from Japan's brutal 1930s invasion and occupation of China.